Ayako: I was wondering where you went… =D

a Spell: School is evil…

Amy: *glomp!* Oh and thanks for the suggestions for the first scene.

sumire: *summons the Omi fans to run over you* … Nah… I admit what you said.. In fact, sometimes he resembles Sakura from CCS O.o

Xin-chan: *glomp!*

I'm not sure if I'll stick Schwarz into this, especially since I wouldn't do them justice if I tried to write them. I'll think about it though.

*is trying to get inspiration from a manga series by Takashima Kazusa*

Nope… Not working… Oh well…

Chapter 6

Ken yawned as he woke up. He paused to listen for any sound from the adjoining room and was pleased to find silence. He thanked the god above that Aya's … time of month… (and therefore PMS) was over the day before, and she had stopped being so moody and demanding.

Ran had also gone back to normal, though Yohji swore that they should get a camcorder in twenty-eight days.

Unfortunately for them, Omi's condition had still not changed, and she remained a girl for the time being. It had already been more or less a week since the change, and, though Omi retained a male mindset, she was still in the female form.

Over the days, much to Ken's irritation, Omi's fanclub had expanded. In fact, they were shocked to learn that Omi already had an all-male fanclub.

…even before 'Kasumi' showed up.

Ken shuddered with the thought. He vowed silently to himself to remain the overprotective best friend, slash, pseudo older brother and keep on batting away all the boys who even dared leer in Omi's direction.

No, he definitely wasn't jealous… Especially since he knew that Omi was actually a guy.

Ken finally decided to get up and take a shower. He checked the clock, and when he found the time to be appropriate. It was earlier than the time he usually took a shower, but he suspected that Omi should be in school, Ran should already be done, and Yohji still asleep.

He climbed out of the bed, picked out some clothes and tossed a towel over his shoulder. As he did every shower, he cursed the bathroom inaccessibility before leaving the apartment room and moving down the stairs to the lower floor.

He idly passed by Yohji and Omi's rooms on the way down the hall to the bathroom the four, now five, of them shared. He paused in front of the bathroom and checked the door to see if it was locked.

The bathroom policy in the building was once non-existent. As they were all male, none of them bothered to lock the door whenever they used the facilities, as there was no problem if any of the others walked in. And it hardly ever happened anyway since, as Ken had thought of earlier, each of them had a different time in which they woke up and showered.

That was the general idea until Aya woke up from her coma. As soon as a girl joined the bathroom queue, they formed a slight rule.

The men found it slightly difficult to break the habit of keeping the door unlocked, such that there was a danger of Aya walking in. As a result, she had learned to knock on the door first and wait for a response. Only when she finds none should she enter without worry. With this, the boys needed to pay attention, so that they can call out if they heard her knocking.

On the other hand, Aya was used to locking the door, and she was the only one who did so. All the boys needed to do was check if the door was locked. If it was, she was using the bathroom. Otherwise, it was safe to enter.

And thus, Ken found the door unlocked and he entered with no problem.

Or so he thought. Someone was using the shower.

Well, he shrugged. No big deal. He closed the door quietly and turned to the mirror. He started trying to tame his unruly hair, grumbling softly. He turned to the shower curtain…

And paused, his eyes widening.

The form through the shower curtain was female.

Ken blanched and tried to take a step back for the door. But, something was rooting him to the spot and he couldn't move. In fact, he couldn't take his eyes off the silhouette.

He had stayed for too long. The figure suddenly paused in what it was doing, and then moved to turn off the water.

The shower curtain was pulled open to reveal a very naked girl covering herself with a towel. Unfortunately, she seemed untrained for this sort of action. The way she held the towel to herself showed the top of her breasts and most of one hip.

Ken could just feel the blood rushing to his head.

"K-ken-kun??" Omi stammered.

Ken's mouth opened and closed frantically but no words were coming out. They had lost their way from his brain. His voice box had somehow been disabled. It must have happened when he saw the beautiful creature in nothing but a very badly positioned towel.

And there was a shriek of terror as Omi's mind processed the current situation.

"OH MY GOD!! KEEENN-KUUUN!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HEREE!!!"

All at once, Ken suddenly felt himself being pelted by an array of bathroom condiments and toiletries. He vaguely recognized shaving cream, Yohji's shampoo, Ran's shampoo, bottles of conditioner, and even a bar of Aya's sweet smelling soap.

Finally, Omi reached for the shower and pulled off the removable nozzle. She aimed it at Ken with one hand, still clutching the towel protectively to herself.

"Ken-kun," she seethed. "If you're not out of here on the count of three I SWEAR you're DEAD!!"

Something must have hit his head because Ken came back to his senses while standing in pile of various bathroom items and a small mixed puddle of drool and blood.

"One…"

Ken scrambled backward, yelping for his life…

"Two…"

… He moved for the door, reaching forward to grab the doorknob…

"Three!"

… And promptly slipped on Aya's soap, falling backwards and landing with a painful thud.

"KEEEEEEN-KUUUUUUUUNNNN!!!"

This only made Omi shriek even more as Ken, most particularly his face and eyes, had somehow come closer and she turned the shower on, proceeding to spray Ken with the nozzle. This made it all the worse for Ken to get up and scramble back out the door. It slammed shut with a bang and Ken remained outside, collapsing against the wall and gasping for breath.

He could feel warmth trickling over his upper lip and he knew that if Omi didn't turn back soon, he was going to die from loss of blood.

His clothes were soaked and he suddenly felt he might not need to shower anymore.

It was not too long later when the door swung open again and Omi stormed out, her cheeks red and a large towel wrapped around her. She was covered better than before, but not good enough for Ken's mental and physical health. There must be some kind of heavenly law that said it was a crime to expose those legs to the public.

"O-omi…" Ken stammered, surprised that his voice had finally started working again. "I-I'm SO sorry, I thought…"

Omi paused in front of him, spun on her heel and countered with a loud, hard slap.

Ken was positive he heard his jaw snap. "a…-ah…"

"How dare you go in there while I was showering!!" Omi hissed. "H-have you no shame?! No morality left in you?!"

"B-but th-the door was unlocked and…"

"You could have knocked!!"

"Omi, you know we don't knock!! Aya-chan does!!"

"And you stayed in there, staring at me when you knew what I was doing and what state I was in… What was with that?!!"

Ken winced as he felt like his jaw had settled back into a comfortable place. That slap had hurt, even more than the falling and the pelting. Then he came to a sudden realization.

"You slapped me."

"Why, Ken-kun," Omi snarled. "I never knew you were so observant."

"That's not what I meant! I meant… you slapped me!"

"Of course I slapped you, you imbecile!! You were deliberately watching me shower!!"

"I don't mean that either!" He grabbed Omi's shoulders and shook him. "Slapping is a girl's first instinct! It's practically a reflex for girls to slap a guy!"

Omi stared at him. "Ken-kun, what in the world are you talking about??"

"Here, watch…"

And to Omi's ultimate shock and horror, Ken reached forward and poked her chest. She immediately reeled her arm back and responded with a backhand across his face, giving him matching red marks on both his cheeks.

Ken's jaw opened in a cry and he winced. "And I just got it back in place too…"

"Wh-what did you do that for??" Omi's voice was increasing in pitch with every shriek.

"I'm trying to prove a point!" Ken rubbed his cheek. "See? You slapped me again!"

"Well, what did you expect with what you did?! Y-you poked my chest!!"

"Yeah, but I poked it before and you didn't react the same way! You've been hitting me and yelling at me and punching me, but this is the first time you slapped me!"

Omi opened her mouth to retort, but then it closed. "Oh…" Her eyes widened in horror, "OH…" She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh my GOD!! Ken-kun!! I'm turning into a girl!"

"No, really?" Ken muttered, averting his eyes since Omi still wasn't exactly decent.

"Ken-kun!! You know what I meant!! Not just physically… I'm going to start thinking like one too!! Oh gods… Oh gods oh gods oh gods!!" Omi let go of her towel and put both hands at her temples in her grief.

That definitely had to have been a bad idea.

Before Omi could realize what she had just done, and before she could recover and try to fix it, it happened.

Ken's eyes widened at the sound of cloth moving and flopping to the floor. He continued to stare straight to the side, toward the bathroom door, swallowing loudly.

He will not turn his head. He will not turn his head.

He will not look at the completely nude female Omi that was standing, horrified, before him. Even though his hormones were screaming at him to look.

"K-ken-kun……" Omi stammered out his exact thoughts. "Don't… look…" Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that there was movement happening. "Don't you dare…"

Speaking was another bad idea.

By instinct (somehow, it was hard to try to not look at someone who was speaking), Ken began to turn his head.

Before vision adjusted correctly and take in the sight, the hallway reverberated the loud shriek.

"KEN-KUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The next thing Ken saw was not the naked Omi, but stars. Somehow he had ended up on his back on the floor. When his vision had returned, he turned his head, only to see Omi's foot and ankle disappear into her room. The door slammed shortly after.

Ken groaned, reaching a hand up and feeling a sore spot on his head. Then he brought the hand down to touch both cheeks, still sore from the slaps.

It was official.

If he wasn't going to die of blood loss, Hidaka Ken was going to be beat to death by his best friend.

-----*-----

"Why is Omi ignoring you?"

Ken just grunted, holding the ice pack to his head.

Yohji smirked. "Another lover's spat? Really, you two could be married."

"Fuck off, Kudoh."

Aya came over, scowling, "Ken-nii, don't show people the finger in public. What could they be thinking?!"

Ken just grunted more, wishing the pain and all the other people would go away.

"Thanks again! Bye!" Omi called from the door. Aya had caught her that morning and had finally been able to dress her in a new outfit, consisting of crème and floral. She passed by them and seemed to shoot Ken another angry look before working on something.

"Ken-san," Sakura frowned. "Why is Omi-kun mad at you?"

Ken groaned and flopped his head onto the table. Why was everyone so concerned if Omi was mad at him?? If he wasn't already in pain, he would have beat his head against the table surface, like he had seen Ran do the other day.

"Arigatou, Kasumi-chan!!"

"We'll be back tomorrow!!"

Omi waved at the other girls, and sighed, glad that there were still some friendlier members of the female species, ones not like those witches that she had met up with her first time working as a female.

She sighed again as she turned to see that Yohji, Aya and Sakura had all crowded around Ken. She had heard them ask him what happened, and frankly she was glad Ken wasn't answering.

The nerve he had to just.. walk in on her! And to try to look when she was… Omi shuddered at the thought. At the moment, she just wanted to turn back into a boy quickly. She knew that Ken wouldn't stare at her so much if she was back as a boy. She felt uneasy every time he did it.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

Omi blinked at the sound of the familiar voice. She spun around. The others looked up, and sure enough, Manx was standing at their door, a look of shock and amusement on her face.

"I thought you were joking when you sent me the report. But it seems to me that…" she eyed Omi, looking her up and down. "Well, I'll not continue."

"Ah! Manx!" Yohji smiled. The shop had emptied out after Omi had taken care of the last two girls. "And why do we have the pleasure of this visit?"

"Did you find something?" Omi asked eagerly. "I mean, is there anything about that stuff I fell in? Or anything about Yutaka?"

Manx shook her head. "Nothing yet. We're doing what we can, though."

Omi groaned, plopping into a chair at the table.

"If you're not here to cure Omi," Ken asked, composing himself a little, though still holding the ice pack, "then what for?"

"What else?" Manx held up a tape.

Aya and Sakura looked at each other and sighed heavily. "We'll take care of the shop for you," Sakura offered, as they always did.

"You guys head on down and do your job."

Omi nodded absently then suddenly straightened, staring at Manx in horror. "But wait… I'm… I'm still like this… And we have a mission?!"

Ken straightened too, glancing at her, then at Manx. "He's right! I mean… Omi has to do this mission as a girl?"

Manx sighed and nodded. "I'm afraid we have no choice. He… she can choose not to accept the mission, of course."

The three looked at Omi and knew she was going to take it no matter what. None of them could think of a mission that Omi refused. Not only that, she was their leader.

"But…" Ken continued. "If Omi's a girl… Th-that'd cause some trouble, wouldn't it? There's stuff that could happen and a lot of the guys we go after are……"

He trailed off, not knowing how to say the rest of it. Omi fidgeted and looked at him, seeming to know what he wanted to say.

Manx sighed and confirmed their fears.

"Well then… I'm sorry… But you'll all have to make do."

-----*-----

omiclones@hotmail.com